mosquito

See also: Mosquito

English

Aedes aegypti biting a human.

Etymology

Borrowed from Spanish mosquito (“gnat”), diminutive of mosca (“fly”), from Latin musca (“fly”), from Proto-Indo-European *mūs- (“fly, stinging fly, gnat”). Cognate with West Flemish meuzie (“mosquito”), dialectal Swedish mausa (“mosquito”), Lithuanian musė (“a fly”) and Sicilian muschitta (“midge”). See also midge.

Pronunciation

• (Canada, US) IPA^(key): /məˈski.toʊ/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /mɒsˈkiː.təʊ/

• Audio (UK)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -iːtəʊ

Noun

mosquito (plural mosquitos or mosquitoes)

1. A small flying insect of the family Culicidae, the females of which bite humans and animals and suck blood, leaving an itching bump on the skin, and sometimes carrying diseases like malaria and yellow fever.
   • 1886 October – 1887 January, H[enry] Rider Haggard, She: A History of Adventure, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., published 1887, OCLC 1167497017:

     I do not quite know what it was that made me poke my head out of the friendly shelter of the blanket, perhaps because I found that the mosquitoes were biting right through it.

Hypernyms

• gnat
• midge

Derived terms

• antimosquito
• malaria mosquito (Anopheles spp.)
• mosquito bar
• mosquito bite
• Mosquito Coast
• mosquito coil
• mosquito fern (Azolla spp.)
• mosquito fleet
• mosquito hawk (Tipulomorpha or Epiprocta)
• mosquito net
• mosquito netting
• mosquito wire
• mosquitocide
• mosquitoey
• mosquitofish (Gambusia spp. et al.)
• mosquitogenic
• tiger mosquito (Aedes spp.)

 

Related terms

• Diminutive: mossie/mozzie (Australia, UK) or skeeter (US)

Descendants

• → Cornish: moskito
• Jamaican Creole: maskitta

Translations

See mosquito/translations § Noun.

Verb

mosquito (third-person singular simple present mosquitos, present participle mosquitoing, simple past and past participle mosquitoed)

1. To fly close to the ground, seemingly without a course.

Galician

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /mʊsˈkitʊ/

Noun

mosquito m (plural mosquitos)

1. mosquito

Italian

Noun

mosquito m (plural mosquiti)

1. mosquito

Old Spanish

Etymology

From mosca, mosco (“fly”) +‎ -ito.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /mosˈkito/

Noun

mosquito m (plural mosquitos)

1. Diminutive of mosca; a mosquito.
   • c. 1250, Alfonso X, Lapidario, f. 107v:

     […] ſera aguardado del danno delos moſquitos. ¬ de todas maneras de moſcas que seá pozonadas o mordedores. / Et eſto es mas deſcendiédo ſobreſta piedra la útud de fiǵa de moſq́to, o de alguna deſtas otras moſcas que dixiemos.

     […] he will be kept from the harm of mosquitos and all manners of flies that are venomous or that bite. And this will happen more when over this stone descends the virtue of the figure of the mosquito, or that of another one of the flies we mentioned.

Descendants

• Spanish: mosquito
  • → English: mosquito

Portuguese

Etymology

From mosca +‎ -ito.

Pronunciation

 

• (Brazil) IPA^(key): /mosˈki.tu/, /musˈki.tu/

• (Brazil) IPA^(key): /mosˈki.tu/, /musˈki.tu/
  • (Rio de Janeiro) IPA^(key): /moʃˈki.tu/, /muʃˈki.tu/
  • (Southern Brazil) IPA^(key): /mosˈki.to/

• (Portugal) IPA^(key): /muʃˈki.tu/

• Hyphenation: mos‧qui‧to

Noun

mosquito m (plural mosquitos)

1. mosquito

Descendants

• → Hunsrik: Muskitt

Spanish

Etymology

mosca +‎ -ito (diminutive suffix), or Old Spanish moquito. Cognate with Sicilian muschitta (“midge”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /mosˈkito/ [mosˈki.t̪o]

• Audio (Colombia)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ito
• Syllabification: mos‧qui‧to

Noun

mosquito m (plural mosquitos)

1. mosquito

   Synonyms: zancudo, (Mexico) moyote, cénzalo

2. gnat
3. (Mexico, colloquial) trimmer
4. (literally) Diminutive of mosco (“small fly”)

Derived terms

• mosquitero
• mosquito simúlido
• mosquito tigre

Descendants

• → Belarusian: маскі́т (maskít)
• → Dutch: muskiet
  • Afrikaans: muskiet
  • Berbice Creole Dutch: maskiti
  • Negerhollands: moeskit, moskite, muskit, moskit
  • → Sranan Tongo: maskita
    • → Caribbean Hindustani: maskitá
    • → Caribbean Javanese: maskitah
• → Esperanto: moskito
• → English: mosquito
  • → Cornish: moskito
  • Jamaican Creole: maskitta
• → Estonian: moskiito
• → French: moustique (with metathesis)
• → German: Moskito
• →⇒ Icelandic: moskítófluga
• → Latvian: moskīts
• → Norman: moustique (with metathesis)
• → Russian: моски́т (moskít)
  • → Yiddish: מאָסקיט‎ (moskit)
• → Ukrainian: москі́т (moskít)

See also

• jején m

Further reading

• “mosquito”, in Diccionario de la lengua española, Vigésima tercera edición, Real Academia Española, 2014